


Amalgam- 1st Person POV

by Glowingchaos



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Enhanced, F/M, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tagging as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowingchaos/pseuds/Glowingchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been so long in that shivering cold, my cell, so long that I had begun to contemplate if the operating table would be better, with its pitiful lamp just barely hinting heat on my pale, freezing shell of a body as the doctor injects pure pain into me.<br/>Then the Avengers saved me. Gave me hope. And for the first time in two and a half years, I didn't wake up in hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had been so long in that shivering cold, my cell, so long that I had begun to contemplate if the operating table would be better, with its pitiful lamp just barely hinting heat on my pale, freezing shell of a body as the doctor injects pure pain into me. My ‘enhancement’ had already begun to start sprouting white fur across my body, to slow my heartbeat, to shift to animal, all to keep me warm, leaving my emotions to plummet as I knew that this was a chain reaction that wouldn’t just stop. I knew I was, more likely than not, going to turn into… something. I'd always hated that I couldn’t control it.  
My train of thought was thrown aside and replaced with a surge of adrenaline as the locked door to the room emitted an earth-shattering clang. I cowered under my bed, fangs jutting through my jaw as my fear climbed. Another burst of sound rang throughout the room as the lock broke and the door flew open, revealing a man clad in blue and red holding a patriotic circular shield, backed by a woman in black with the most fiery red hair one could imagine. The man saw me cowering under my bunk, half-human, half-monster as I hissed in fear, no thought as to what they were doing. My brain was so tainted with animal that my thoughts could barely form before they were thrust away in favor of emotion. I couldn’t tell they weren’t a threat.  
“Nat, do you have that tranquilizer? I think we have another enhanced, and I’m planning on taking out the least amount of innocent people possible,” he requested. She lowered her fighting stance to grab the tranquilizer from her belt of endless gadgets and handed the device to him. I growled threateningly as they moved toward me, spotted fur covering more and more of me and human features covering less and less. He held his hands up to try and show that he was non-confrontational, but he saw no change in my behavior. An apology followed quickly by a dart was met with a bellowing roar from the snow leopard in front of him. Because honestly, I wasn't really there anymore. 

I jolted awake, first noticing through the tail end of the drugs, that I was on something soft, compared to the hard cell I had spent a multitude of eternities in. I looked down, and was dressed in a hospital gown with friendly, crimson velvet sheets encircling me. I curled them around myself in a cocoon and peered around at my new location. It was a dark grey room, lit with hidden lights close to the floor, the wall on my left slanted inward with thickly frosted glass giving me a fuzzed view of the bright city below. The right wall had open doors to a closet and a bathroom. And in front of me was a door. It seemed like heaven compared to the dingy zoo-like cell I had lived in. ‘Where is this? I feel like this isn’t Ukraine anymore. At least I’m away from that monster,’ I thought, grimacing at the thought of Doctor Flint, who devolved me into what I was now. He wouldn’t think so. He said I was akin to a god, but I couldn’t believe him. A tame knock at the door caught my attention and I hunkered down in my nest of blankets, the opening now facing the offending door. “Hello?” I asked, my voice sounding like rocks grinding together, damaged and rough after such an eternity of forced silence.  
“May I come in?” A female voice sounded through the door. I hummed an affirmative, but shrunk into the covers just in case. “I’m friendly, don’t worry, okay?” She asked, slowly opening the door. She was no longer clad in the figure-hugging black from before, but an oversized T-shirt and grey sweatpants. She carried a tray of sparse breakfast food; applesauce, eggs, bread, water. She closed the door quietly behind her and approached tentatively. “I’m Natasha, I’m not going to hurt you I’ve just brought you some food. I don’t think you’ve really eaten in quite some time.” She knelt beside my bed, placing it on one of the bedside tables.  
“Is it… drugged?” I croaked. Having just come from hell on earth, I wasn't sure who to trust. I'd rather go hungry another day than be in a drugged haze.  
“No, I promise.” she smiled, but I was still wary. She ate little bits of each to show it wasn’t tainted, and I reluctantly trusted her. She stayed in the room as I ate, but at a distance to make sure I wasn't unnerved. I tried to eat slowly, but it had been so long without good food that I ended up scarfing it down in ecstasy.  
"It’s requested that you go to the infirmary," she said. I nodded, cheeks packed with happiness. The food made me not care about much, but I noticed the strict yet careful way she held herself around me.  
I finished my food and spoke, "What do they want? And how far away?"  
"Not that far, one floor down and halfway across the tower. The nurses saw you healing quickly in the time you've been here, so they've given you this as a small test."  
I contemplated the idea. The trek would be difficult, and I had no clue how well I could walk anyways, but decided to go for it. It was a completely new world from what I had lived in for the past eternity, however long it had been. “I will,” I agreed, “but I need to know when it is first. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone.”  
“November 15th, 2017,” she said with a glance at her watch. A chill erupted down my spine as painful tears pricked at my eyes; I put my hands up in a futile effort to stop the warm water from falling. “Hey, what’s the matter? You alright? How long’s it been?” she said, crossing the room as quickly as she could without startling me and began rubbing my shoulder affectionately.  
“Four years,” I sobbed.


	2. Doctor's Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I recall what happened to me, on the cold hard table in Ukraine, from the cold hard table in my new home.

I had calmed down enough to walk to the medical bay, bringing along the smallest fuzzy blanket as ‘protection’ on my back like a cape. It felt, emotionally, like a shield or armor, quite protecting, even though it was only a thick, fuzzy swath of fabric. It made me feel safe. Natasha led me to the elevator, where a lower level agent puzzled at the basket-case wearing a blanket, a hospital gown, and a bird’s nest of hair around the seemingly high-level building. As we went down, I asked, “Where exactly are we?”  
“The Avengers Tower, New York,” Nat responded shortly, a small smirk gracing her lips as I stumbled, star-struck, out of the elevator onto the medical floor. Nurses in teal scrubs surrounded the place, and I realized how much doctors and nurses set me on edge now. This was just a well-lit version of the dungeon I was in for so long. _Untrustworthy_ , I seethed in my mind, hunkering down into the blanket that swept around my shoulders in a hug as a doctor approached. “Don’t be too nervous, she’s the one who did most of the healing once we brought you back here,” Nat said. The doctor motioned for me to follow her. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry. They’re not going to hurt you, promise,” Nat assured, “I’m going to talk to the others, she can call for me if you really need support.” She left, and I followed the doctor, who had waited through the interaction.  
“Hello, I’m Dr. Joan Davidson. As Agent Romanoff said, I cared for you when they brought you back from Ukraine. Now, we tried running blood tests to find out who you were, but the testing that the rogue scientists put you through tainted your blood with animal DNA, so the machines wouldn’t give a name. So you are…?” She questioned as I walked into an untouched medical room, sitting at a computer with an eagle logo. I sat reservedly on the bed.

 _{The handler is asking your name. Answer the handler. Tell the handler your name.}_ I flinched away from the man's voice rattling around my head, an approximation of what the man who handles brains would have said back in Ukraine.

“Amelia Kerr,” I stated, spelling the last name as she quickly searched on an enormous database, most likely government-run.  
“From Santa Barbara?” she asked for clarification. I nodded, wondering if she could still recognize you with your gaunt face and skinny figure. “It... says here that you were declared dead in Ukraine over four years ago. Can I ask what happened?” She seemed… softer, than Natasha, in her questioning. Even so, I knew Natasha a little bit more, and would rather speak to her. _{Preference does not matter. Answer when spoken to. Answer your handler.}_  
“It…" I cleared my throat, resetting to neutral as I answered the handler. "It was a late night, I was walking back from buying a few things at the supermarket. There were four men walking behind me, two British, one German, and one I believed was French. I thought they were just drunk, but they kept walking faster, gaining on me, and… they grabbed me. I thought they were going to rob me or, or rape me, but I thought- hoped, they were going to leave me _there_ , leave me _whole_ , but they put a bag over my head and threw me in a car.” I paused to collect myself, teeth clenched and hands gripping the table. It was a status report. Tell the handler the status report. “They put many needles in me. Blood out, something in that just felt like liquid pain… They put me in this old-looking metal casket that had so many, so many needles, and then shined really painful bright lights that didn't just hurt my eyes." I caught my breath for a second, status reports normally didn't take this long. "He would make me turn into whatever animal they had put in me, have his minions beat me until it was forced to come out. It hurt to turn into other things at first, but that wore away as time went on and he changed me more. Then, then once I had picked up a wide amount of genetic differences, he said I had ‘improved,’ and that I could pick up genetics through multiple types per session. That went on for a while, and I was able to put together different animals, like, a dog and a wolf would be something, and then I could add a bear. He said he was about to start adding a different, personal variable… I think he meant human blood. But, they, uh, saved me, before he started that,” I stopped, catching my breath. The edges of my vision blackened, encroaching as white stars floated through my eyes.  “Ugh, dizzy,” I mumbled, more to myself than the doctor. She, however, perked up from her ferocious typing at that notion.  
“Was it from walking down here, or talking a lot?” she questioned, quickly unhooking a stethoscope from the wall and approaching until the blanket stopped her.  
“T- talking, I believe. They made sure I stayed quiet,” I crackled, reluctantly removing the blanket from my shoulders as she checked my vitals. It was the first time I had seen my body clean in so long. Legs and wrists thin, collarbones and ribs saying a soft hello through my ghastly pale skin that yearned for the touch of the sun’s honey glow, mottled with the blue of veins, the purple of freezing skin, and the newly introduced red from the nurses scrubbing years of dirt away. It unnerved me, seeing how disgusting my skin was, even without the dirt that had covered me for so long. But I stayed stoic as my handlers had wanted before.   
“Your heart is faster than before, but that’s between sedated you and stressed you, so it’s an acceptable gap. I’m glad you’re healing quickly. Have you eaten? I would be surprised if Ms. Romanov had made that much of a connection with a former captive without food involved,” she questioned. I nodded and reiterated a quick verbal affirmation, but looked away and down when she said 'captive'. I wished I hadn't been a captive. _{No, look at the handler. The handler wants eye contact from their assets.}_ “With the way you’re responding to food, and your body’s augmentation of changing shape, I think you should be cleared to eat without restrictions,” she confirmed. I smiled a bit, the feeling now foreign, but welcomed.  
“Thank you. I have no way of paying you though."  
“Don’t worry about that, the Director decided that you would be helpful around the other avengers, if you chose to stay. He’s offering you a new identity, even if you don’t take it. Though I think one of the Avengers should be telling you this, they know more than I do. I’ve got a few more tests-” she stopped herself to change her wording, “examinations to run. Just to make sure you’re healing up. I know needles are scary, but it would be great if we could give you some fluids and helpful drugs to keep you in the green zone,” she tried to phrase it as best she could.

I shivered, but responded complacently, “Okay.”  
She left to get what she needed, I had no clue, I didn’t take any medicine classes, but it left me to look around the room; dull in color, but the smell of the hospital kept trying to pull me towards panic. I didn’t let it, repeating in a whisper, “I’m safe. I’m safe. The Avengers saved me. I’m safe.” In due time, she returned with a cart of medical tools like the ones I had seen in the hallway, along with an eager nurse in tow. The medicines on the cart made me shiver as I looked, reminded again of that stupid cement block I lived in- no, survived in for years. She drew my blood, now that I was awake and clear of drugs, then gave me three shots and a bottle of pills. I didn't cringe, but then again it didn’t hurt; probably pain tolerance from the operations. I just stared straight ahead, eyes glossed over as I lived in the past.

_{The asset is responding well to the procedures. Double up on the training. Continue weekly procedures with blood serums and Vita-rays.}_

_{Heil Hydra, glorious Hydra. We shall bring order to this world. Heil Hydra.}_

_{The asset killed two footsoldiers today during transformation, fashion restraints to deploy if necessary. We must maintain absolute control.}_

_{Heil Hydra, glorious Hydra. We shall bring order to this world. Heil Hydra.}_

_{Order sequential psychological molding dispatched by the footsoldiers, including but not limited to extreme derision and mental torment, beatings, and group rapings. Break her down to a base before molding her back up.}_

_{Heil Hydra, glorious Hydra. We shall bring order to this world. Heil Hydra.}_

_{Ma'am, I'm done. Are you alright? You look like you're somewhere else. Miss Kerr? Amelia?}_

"Amelia?"

I snapped back to the present, gasping as I reoriented myself.

"Apologies. I remembered the testing... I'll try to stay here in the future." 

She told me that I was doing better than she would have expected, and that I could return to my room. I did, but remembered to take my beloved blanket-cape.


	3. Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I meet the others, and fill myself after a long time of nothing.

I returned to the room that I woke up in. My room, now; I'd decided I'd claim it. The elevator ride up had no one in it, and I was glad for the surreal atmosphere of being truly alone for the first time in years. There was new, delicious-looking food set fashionable on the table. I quickly dug in, tears of relief and joy crawling their way out of my eyes as I switched foods, flavor overloading my tastebuds after years of bland boiled potatoes. It was actually disappointing when I felt full, but, then again, it was expected.

There was a knock on my door and I smiled at Nat as she let herself in. “Hey!” I chirped cheerfully, carefree from the plethora of food I had consumed. “Hey. The rest of the group wants to meet you, including the Director, but I told them you’re still settling in and it should be your choice. So what do you say?” she proposed.

I took a breath and replied quietly. “Ok." There wasn't any more to say: My handlers wanted to see me. I curled my blanket around me more and stopped subconsciously picking at the leftovers on the side table. “Can I get some clothes? And maybe meet outside my room? I'd feel more comfortable with this being a known safe place…” I trailed off as I felt it might be a bit of a demand.

“Sure, I’ll lend you some of my clothes for the time being. And we can meet up in Tony’s lab or something, Bruce is bound to be there, and Steve likes to marvel at whatever the two are doing, even if he doesn’t understand it at all,” she assured.

“Ok,” I agreed succinctly, pausing, “Can… can I bring my blanket along? I feel safer with it, I know it’s stupid…”

“You’re fine, you can bring it. I should have thought of clothing earlier, you can borrow some of mine.” She left, soon returning with undergarments, a maroon shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and a black and grey jacket. She waited outside as I changed. They were a bit large right now, but probably would fit nicely once I got back up to health again.

"Wanna go?” she said when I opened the door, making a ‘come on’ gesture. I felt like fragile glass whenever she talked to me, the way she acted. I followed her to the elevator, three floors up, and walked into a lab containing the three men she mentioned before, giddy with excitement as they counted down. They were at six when I stepped gingerly onto the tile floors that were stained from past experiments. 

“Five… Four… Three…” Chorused the men, as they stared in excitement at an upside down liter bottle.

“Two… ONE…” finished two of the men, who were not Tony Stark (I recognized him from the news) in anticipation.

Tony, most likely the instigator of this ‘experiment’ exclaimed, “LIFTOFF!!” as he punched a button on a remote control that looked more for a toy car than whatever it was. That whatever quickly resolved itself into a bottle rocket propelled by a mini-repulsor. An unintelligible blaring kphooom erupted from the beast as the projectile rocketed around the room. The three cackled in glee at their ‘invention’ as it ripped through the open space, knocking over anything they had decided wasn’t dangerous enough to take care of. Firing off in spirals before it lost thrust and fell, it ended up spinning quickly in my and Nat’s direction across the floor. She kicked it back at them, the mostly empty bottle knocking hollowly against the tile.

“Time for a break from the danger, boys, the new girl’s here to say hello,” Nat quipped, sauntering forward as the men’s laughter died down. I tailed along, the fuzz covering my shoulders making me feel childish but safe.

Tony scoffed and countered, “It’s not dangerous, it’s just a bottle rocket, come on, it only knocked over like... eight things- nevermind.” I laughed a little as his defense imploded. “So who’s this ‘new girl’ anyways?” he asked, a smirk in his voice. “I hear the lab had a bit of trouble ID’ing her. I was going to give Banner a sample to see if he could figure it out, but I guess that’s a moot point now.” he picked up a sandwich that was on a table to his left and took a large bite.

“Amelia Kerr." I spoke up, "But apparently I need a new name, since Ukraine and the US both think I’m dead.” I had desperately tried to appear confident, but did awfully with my withered body, baggy clothing, and comfort blanket. He mumbled something through his food, but realized that it was appallingly incoherent and decided to finish his food before talking. 

“Sorry, what I meant to say was, ‘nice cape,’” he restated. I felt my cheeks heat up a little as I quickly took it off, a military quickness to my movements, and held it instead. “No, no really, you’re fine, it’s common for survivors of… difficult situations like yours…. tend to cling onto a thing, or person, a lot. For me it’s Pepper, as cheesy as it sounds. The whole thing with the Middle East shook me up pretty bad, and she definitely helped,” he assured. I smiled a little bit, but continued to hold the comfort item. He seemed to realize introductions had not happened, made a small ‘oh’ sound, set his sandwich down, and extended his hand to shake. “Tony Stark, of course,” he introduced himself. I shook it and the other two approached. 

“Dr. Bruce Banner, genetic scientist and nuclear physicist,” was the one with prematurely grey hair and a kind, practiced smile. 

“Steve Rodgers, at your service, ma’am,” the last man declared; broad shoulders and bright blue eyes his most striking characteristics. That and his apparent chivalry. ‘Of course,’ I reminded myself, ‘He’s Captain America.’ 

I knew of the three, but it was still interesting to see them in person. I noticed more about the small things when I saw them like this; Steve’s mild frown in concern as he felt how cold my hand was (his burned in comparison), Bruce’s genuine smile that seemed intent on making me feel happier and safer. I remembered why he was with the Avengers and came to the conclusion that his safe, docile demeanor is in direct contrast to his condition. Maybe he practiced it because people got nervous. 

“Thank you for… saving me. I know you don’t take kindly to Hydra’s puppets, so it’s amazingly generous of you to have done that,” I offered to the group, not particularly sure who might have fought for or against bringing me back. 

“It was the obvious choice," Steve declared, voice laden with certainty in his decision, "You hadn’t done anything wrong, and with you in that cell, it was clear you weren’t doing anything of your own free will.” Of course he was the one who brought me back. Supposedly his sense of justice and rightousness was nonpareil, but I had the idea that he was more of a human being than the movies let on.

I was going to respond when Tony’s Starkpad buzzed with a notification on the same table the sandwich hailed from. He picked up the device and shook it once, displaying the information in a hologram in the center of the group, doubled on the back so Nat and I could read it. It was my information, meshed together from college applications, obituaries, Hydra observations, lab reports, and even what I had divulged in that quiet hospital room. They stood quietly for a long moment, reading over it- their faces growing less and less jovial as it moved from alive-to-the-world me to dead-to-the-world me. I didn’t pay too much attention, I already knew the story of course, but I skimmed it to see what they did and didn’t put in. There wasn’t much left out in the Hydra reports, and as it went on, I actually became intrigued as to what they were doing to me. It seemed they were trying to give me the ability to change my cells at will, to any genetics I had already encountered, through consumption of either the animal’s blood or the animal itself. It left me not completely human, explaining that my senses were heightened and DNA was tainted. Theoretically, I was able to change into other humans and mix animals together, but since they used a technique that played off of studies of post-accident Bruce as well as using the serum-injecting machine that transformed Steve, it ended up dependent on my emotions, uncontrollable and unpredictable. They were only able to use me, in essence, as a bomb- beat me, rape me, torture me, until I was completely animal and unintelligible, then drop me into the middle of a town. The future plans decided that my powers could certainly, eventually, be controlled by thought, but it would take months of training and brainwashing in the form of physical and mental torture, conditioning-

{We are molding you to be something beautiful, experiment. Listen to us- AUGH :I bit him hard with a dog’s mouth on his hand. He struck me hard on my face thrice.: How- dare- you! :I whined and tears came unwilled from my eyes. I had to obey him, or they would rape me. I knew that they would rape me again. I wished I was anywhere but here.: You will bend to us, you disgusting mongrel!}

and rape. I shuddered at the memories, but was hopeful at the thought that it could be controlled. I finished after most of the others, who I could tell were done as well as uncomfortable from their weight shifting back and forth. 

“We all done?” Tony asked, his voice lower and more serious than before. When all nodded or failed to object, he took the pad and jolted it forward again. The report disintegrated into words then dust then nothing, as I gazed in a wonder cut short. They all took a minute to process. 

Sometime in there, Steve simply whispered, “Oh my god.”

It made me nervous, them knowing about what happened, and I could tell they were; the room smelled different. ‘No, wait, Tony smells it too,’ I thought. He had started sniffing as though he was trying to identify it, fear beginning to etch across his face. He ran off to another part of the room behind him, muttering curses and “This always happens,” as he turned off a neglected flame and removed a sizzling pile of greenish-gray froth atop a pan from the mess it had made. “Banner, it turned into a problem, again,” he called across the spacious area as he washed away the frothy chemical the reaction had spewed.

“This place is so dangerous,” I murmured offhand. Banner chuckled, making no attempt to help Stark whatsoever. 

“It’s how Tony operates. I’ve started to pick up his bad habits, too, but IT’S NOT SMART, HUH, TONY?” he shouted the last part across the room at his partner in crime. Tony flipped him the bird and kept cleaning. 

Once done, Tony opened a couple of windows, told us that we should evacuate this level for about three hours, and promptly herded everyone into the elevator. We ascended two floors to an area that was the prettiest, most well-stocked mess hall ever. It had a plethora of food, arranged in what seemed to be type of cuisine; mexican, fast food, southern, vegetarian, fish-based, the list went on and on. My mouth watered at the sight. I dug in, already hungry again after the mini-buffet from before. Steve joined in the fray.

“Are you that hungry already?” Nat asked. I nodded, cheeks once again puffed with a delicious burrito from the mexican section. 

I swallowed about half of what was in my mouth, then answered, “Nufin like good mehuc'n.” The food naturally sedated me, and I felt more at ease around these strange people with household names.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry that happened to you, I wish I had made my studies less accessible,” said Bruce, sitting down with an actual tray of food (I had just grabbed what was in front of me, I was starving). I shook my head and waved at him, trying to communicate, ‘Nah, you’re fine.’ Apparently the message got through. “I know you might think I had nothing to do with it, but I feel responsible because they got a hold on my studies. You might have been better off if they didn’t have those.” Great, now I had to actually stop eating and say what I wanted to communicate. I swallowed and wished that he didn't have such a vendetta against pent-up feelings (though I knew why). 

“I’d be different, and honestly I’d rather not imagine how they’d work around the problem. It most likely made it easier for them, so, easier for me to deal with. You’re completely fine,” I said, waiting with my burrito incroaching on my face for about half the sentence. I took another bite as soon as the last word left my mouth. The man nodded, and began eating. I wasn't trying to be rude, but was definitely glad the conversation was over so I could stuff myself with food again. 

“Jeez, Amy, you’re almost on Cap’s level; you sure know how to put away food,” Tony quipped. 

“I’ve got four years of food to catch up on, better start now,” I joked. They seemed glad I could joke about my time in my cell, but really, I was just trying to finish the conversation and eat. I looked over, and indeed, Steve was also consuming mass quantities of food, like me. Tony’s phone buzzed, and upon checking it, decided to read it aloud. 

“Ooh, doctor’s report. ‘Amelia Karr is cleared to eat as much as she wants, and is encouraged to do so. Her metabolism,’” he paused, raising his eyebrows in surprise, “aha, ‘is on a level between olympic medalists and Steve Rodgers himself.’ So I was right!” he reveled in his knowledge, puffing his chest out not unlike a bird. 

“Welcome to the team, Amy,” Steve congratulated, on his third taco, and not slowing. 

Tony got another, longer message from the lab a couple minutes later; he projected this one instead. It explained that with only the small amount of food I had been given this morning, I had already used most of it up in repairing myself and gaining weight towards a normal baseline. My body was optimized to use all of the energy I ate as best it could, therefore my recovery would be quicker than it ever should be, but requiring mass amounts of food. The report finished with unknowns, such as what happens when I change and if it taxes my energy to do so, how I might store energy in the future, and if Hydra’s theoreticals of copying other humans and mixing animals might be a possibility.

“It’s true, you look better already, less gaunt,” Nat chimed in, only nibbling a single slice of pizza. I rubbed my face, and sure enough, my cheeks weren’t hollow like they had been when I had first awoken. The group continued light banter, Nat and Bruce finishing seemingly early but was honestly just a normal person’s diet. Tony ate more than those two, but claimed he had been working in the lab for a day straight, so it was appropriate. But Steve and I went far beyond appropriate. Apparently it was normal for Steve to eat this much, but they had no clue about me. Steve ended up stopping and staring as I continued to chow down, having eaten about half of the mexican stand and two full pizzas. 

“I think I’m actually putting on weight, these clothes feel less baggy than before,” I mentioned once I finished, in more of a joking manner, but realized how much I had eaten gazing over the wrappers and remnants. I lifted my shirt to find that my ribs weren’t showing anymore, and my stomach didn’t cave in nearly to my spine. I looked about normal. 

“What the fuck…?” I muttered. No, this wasn’t right. This never happened with the food back in the Hydra testing place, though they had never allowed me this much. 

“Ok, that is not what I looked like before, what the actual hell is going on,” I reported in a mostly monotone, certainly serious voice. 

“You ate more than Cap,” Tony said, stunned. 

“But what is going on? Really, I’m going back to the medical hall, whatever you guys refer to it as, but I’m guessing the doctors would love to see this,” I declared, shaking my head in disbelief. “You ate more than Cap,” Tony repeated half an octave higher. Did he not see the larger problem here? 

“I’m going with, this is going to be an amazing genetic puzzle… and I want to help of course,” defended Bruce. Nat followed silently, grabbing my blanket-cape. 

“Nobody eats more than Cap!” Tony exclaimed, confused, maybe a little scared, and certainly stunned. I marched through the doors before he could say anything else.


	4. Doctor's Visit

Down six floors in the elevator. It felt slow, time creeping by at an ant’s pace as my brain worked furiously against the confusion and worry tingling down my spine, but this elevator was most likely quicker than many others that traversed the stone pillars that were the skyscrapers of New York. I rushed into Dr. Davidson’s office as quickly as I could to keep from seeing all the too-close needles. She heard my footsteps, half-stomping into her room, and turned quickly.

“I- I ate a lot, and everyone’s confused, and I’m a lot less skinny…” my words all jumbled together as I tried to explain as best I could what happened in the mess hall. My tongue wasn’t used to talking.

_{Silence, mongrel! Focus on your training, or we’ll send you back to the guards that enjoy you much more than this trainer.}_

“More than Cap…” she mumbled under her breath, then, “Ok, I’m going to tes- examine you more, If you’ll allow that.” Nat and Bruce walked up to the door, and I grabbed my blanket from her, nodded my thanks, and closed the door in their faces.

I removed the jacket and shirt so she could read my breathing and see my progress. My skin was still pale, but healthy, and the bruises had gone. My body looked about like it had years ago, except white as a ghost, coated in blue veins that had sunk back under the skin from so, so many needles.

_{You will become stronger than the first one that came from this machine. :They shoved me into the machine, no delicacy about it.: We’ll make sure of it.}_

“Fascinating,” she said, gazing at my new form. “Do you mind, the pants? Just wondering if your legs…” she seemed to be treading lightly in this conversation. She assumed correctly that the men had taken control of my body. However, I obeyed, removed my pants, and saw that my legs were in similar shape. Not fit, per se, but healthily shaped; normal.The twigs were gone. She allowed me to return to my pants and shirt , but took more blood. I honestly felt far less scared now that I weren't frail and tiny like before, felt like I might be able to walk a mile without needing to hold onto a wall every five steps. But the needles still brought my eyes to a glaze, a hidden fear that was chiseled into me. I began shivering again as the memories barraged me again. _{You’ll be beautiful, little one, beautiful, and perfect. :he whispered chilling nothings at me, the plates with so so many needles moving into place, held down by thick straps.:}_ It took all my willpower to stay calm. _{Stay still, damn it! You can’t achieve true beauty without a little pain, yes?}_

“I hope I’m not going to get fat,” I joked in a murmur, trying to stay in the room here and not get trapped in my head there as she dripped blood into various machines, sending some of it away with a bubbly nurse that seemed constantly absurd in her optimism. She heard my quip through the deafening silence of the room.

“I doubt it. Your body will most likely optimize like Captain Rogers’s. It’s the most likely example of why you could eat so much- to create enough energy and supplies to return to a normal weight and recover at such an extraordinary pace,” she commented.

I hung around until the results came back, surprisingly fast compared to the doctors visits I remembered from the kind part of the past. Natasha and Bruce let themselves in, not even questioning the door slamming from before, and the doctor and I filled them in. The results, as always, were hampered by my genetic tampering, but reported as close to baseline as they could. Dr. Banner took particular interest in the results and read the specifics of both preliminary and recent reports- the parts I didn’t care to read.

Natasha held me and rubbed my shoulders until I was back in the present. She led me up to my room to sleep voluntarily for the first night since I’d been rescued. I dreamt.

_He cackles, his thick, plaque-tainted breath blighting my airspace as he lowers the metal plates filled with a thousand needles, ripping me open with the pure fire that drips from their hell-spawned points. I scream to the heavens but no one can hear me, there are no gods or heavens to be found here. I scream for hours on end as the fire never ceases, the pain never ending, the torture that the doctor finds so scientifically fascinating never, ever stopping. I can see that one of the guards is hard beneath his uniform, turned on by this sick experiment, but in the haze of pain and hysteria, I can’t bring myself to care. I scream and cry until my voice grows hoarse, then I scream and cry hoarsely until my voice devolves into nothing, and I go through the motions and the air jolts out of my lungs over and over but there is no screaming and my voice is gone. A weak wheeze replaces the powerful, primal explosion that used to rip through my throat, used to tear through the room, and used to spark that guard’s sick fantasies. The doctor’s had his fun, has finished with his toy (it’s broken now), and throws it back in it’s box. I fall asleep quickly in my cell, cheeks stained with tears that can’t flow anymore because my eyes are dry._

_There is a blade, digging into my throat. I jolt up from the pain, trying to scream, but it’s not going to happen. I won’t scream for a long time, I think, with the raw scraping of hot breath against my torn vocal chords. I won’t be able to. There was no blade, but there is pain there, burning a clear path every time I try to swallow or even breathe. It’s a different pain, different than the needles, the pain in my throat. It still hurts._

_He does it over and over again, tortures me, but at least he lets me sleep. There isn’t much food; I can hear him arguing over a phone older than it should be about shipments stopped by ‘those damn Avengers, thinking they’re saving the world’. I get smaller as he tries to make me into something bigger than the broken creature that inhabited the waste-stained concrete box. Once in a while, a subordinate with a big hose comes and treats me and my cell the same, aggressively spraying water at the disgusting things. I’m not sure if they’re trying to make it smell better or worse._

_The worst part is the nothing. The hours, maybe days of drilling boredom. I try to trick the guards, get them to pity me. It doesn’t work. I try to intimidate them. They laugh, a throaty, harrowing sound. I try to seduce them. I get close with the perverted one, but their shift changes too soon. Everything is always too soon. And when they put me into the casket with so many needles, I wonder if the First Avenger ever thought the device that gave him a new body would be used like this._

_The doctor doesn’t want to beat me. He tells the guards to do it instead. The one who gets hard when I am screaming asks softly if the guards should, or could, rape me. I cannot hear him well, my ears still ringing from my own hoarse screams and the impact of boots and rifle ends against my skull._

_The doctor agrees. I was so close to accepting what happened here and then he agrees. "It will do good to speed her psychological molding, and solidify that we are her true masters. Isn't that right, dearest abomination?” He turns and smiles godlessly at me._

_The men return to beating me. They insult me, raw, painful blades made of words that match their steel-toed kicks, and their belts fall away and become a new weapon to beat me with as they choke me without their hands around my neck. I feel myself beginning to change. They see it, and continue raping me. Human disappears. Animal appears. A bear, this time; a cheetah before. Before, they chased me; now, they will fight me. I will fight them- No, it will fight them. My brain is muddled with emotion and within seconds I am gone. I will remember little, for the animal is here. It's claws tear into the leg of the guard that is down my throat. A roar erupts from both of us._

I woke screaming, a primal, inhuman sound of fear that ripped through my throat, no longer obscured by past rubbings-raw. The nightmare shook me to my core, reminding me of what I was (killer, animal) and what I wasn’t (normal, human). I didn’t know where I was. The surroundings were too soft, it wasn’t my cell, I was drowning in fake fur. I flung myself from the fuzz and crushed myself against the wall in terror. It wasn’t the concrete I had known for so long, but drywall instead. Someone burst through the door, fighting stance ablaze and flaming hair wild from sleep. It was then that I remembered, it was then that the memories fell away and the truth flickered to life in my eyes again. I took a large, long breath, a freed bird stretching its wings. Natasha lowered her stance and landed gracefully next to me, coming to my aid. She reached out a hand to touch my shoulder. I leaned into it and did not flinch away, and her arms enveloped me warmly. The comfort was wholly welcome.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, they’re not going to hurt you anymore, we saved you, your safe now,” she repeated, spouting calm nothings reasurringly as she held me and rocked me. Steve ran through the open door soon after, his approach harkening his arrival down the hallway. He relaxed when he saw Natasha cradling me on the floor.

“Nightmare?” he asked, his shoulders dropping, pity flowing in his voice, even with only one word. He sat down on the ground, propped against the side of my bed, close but distant enough that he wasn’t intimidating me. I must have reached a certain level of comfort in Steve’s eyes, as he slinked over next to me and sat, hugging me as well. It was the first time since being locked away that I had hugged a man, and though I worried slightly, I convinced myself that this man was one who could only touch his allies with an air of innocence. My heartrate floated back down like that, held by the one person I trusted with a guardian wrapped close as though on watch.

“What time is it?” I drawled, sleep creeping back into the edges of my mind. Steve untangled himself and checked his watch.

“1:24,” he responded, completing his statement with a yawn. I yawned back and rubbed my eyes, as they now hurt to open.

“I’m sorry for waking you both,” I whispered meekly. They both assured me that it was no trouble at all, and Steve even defended that he was up for a late night snack. I thanked them for helping, bid them goodbye, and returned to bed. The last thing to cross my mind was to ask for a clock soon. I did not dream.

I woke with more composure than during the midnight escapades, and the remnant memories did not haunt me as before. A clock dutifully sat on my bedside table, reporting a red 10:38 to the room. Warm light streamed in from the frosted glass as I rose, showered (a luxury that I near-cried for), and upon finding that the closet was still unstocked, returned to the clothes Natasha had lent me the day before. I silently slipped up to the mess hall, grabbed a human amount of food, and sat down to nibble on my spoils of conquest. Steve entered, murmured a ‘good afternoon', hauled a truckload of food into his possession, and slipped delicately into the seat on my right.

“You’re going on a shopping trip today with Natasha there for backup and surveillance. It’s probably not a big deal for you, but we can’t risk someone finding a dead person wandering around a mall. Plus, I hear from Pepper herself that Nat has great taste in clothing,” he said, breaking the calm silence as I was finishing my measly salad. He, however, was consuming an absurd portion of… was it scrambled eggs? “Stark’s paying,” he interrupted my thoughts once he finished what he had been eating, “so don’t worry about money. Or refusing, for that matter, the man was throwing a damn fit last night. It’s the most caring I’ve seen him about anything besides his machines and Pepper,” Steve chuckled.

“Daaamn right, I’m payin’!” Stark anounced in a near comical grandeur from the entrance of the mess hall, loud enough to make me jump. Loud noises mea bad things, but no, I’m safe now. I calmed down and glared at the offending shouting multi-billionaire. His hair was absolutely a mess, and he wore white sweatpants and a grandiose grey bathrobe. He looked like he owned the place, and from my knowledge of his money, he probably did. He held out his arms (the right holding a white mug of coffee, black, I could smell the bitterness from where I was) in either presentation or a gestural request for a hug. I assumed the former, because a man that theatrical is always presentation. “There’s no way I’m letting you live in that room without it being your room. It’s just necessary!” He crowed with something between pride and care, half-joking in a manner that I’d seen many times before on the great television debates (because really, it’s hard not to know him). “And Cap, I would think better of your language!” With the joke in his voice, it was an ongoing conversation.

“I’d pay on my own,” I murmured, “but I don’t think dead people have much money,” I huffed mildly in amusement as I smirked at my food. I heard Steve snort as well, and glanced over to see a smirk across his face.

We made small talk, though Stark only talks big, and was the first to leave. I was reviewing what I knew about the Avengers, what files I'd accidentally read on social media during the SHIELD/Hydra file flood. Tony wandered off to grab some green sludge and wax poetic about his ‘great deeds’, and as soon as he was out of earshot, Steve turned hurriedly to talk to me.

“Y’know, I never thought I’d see that machine again. I thought they’d gotten rid of it while I was in the ice,” Steve muttered. I could hear his heart beating faster, his breath angry. “I can’t believe those bastards used the damn thing for such- such torture, such an awful experiment. When I understood what they’d done to you, I-“ he paused to take a breath and calm himself, and began again in a lower voice. “I swear I wanted to make every one of those men hurt as much as I could make them. And I didn’t even know you at the time; all I saw was a stranger in a cage, but it made my blood boil.” He paused to think, and though my stomach felt empty, I didn’t want to touch the plate again. “Maybe the capsule hit close to home, reminded me how human the people they test on are. I’m sorry, you probably don’t want to think about it at all, it was a bad idea.”

“ _‘You will become stronger than the first one that came from this machine,’_ the doctor had said. I had an idea that it might have been yours, but it seemed absurd that they might have gotten the vessel that ‘Captain America’ from history class had stepped out of. Not to do what they’re… what they were doing. But they thought it would work, and it did,” I replied. “I just wish there wasn’t so many needles.”

He nodded, seeming cinematic in his understanding.

I slipped off quietly to my room after that telling talk to prepare for going out in public. I leaned on the door as soon as I had closed it, a huff of breath jolting out of my mouth as my back hit the door.

_{Public is not for you, experiment,}_ the doctor had whispered after a particularly bad batch of bullets on a bio-bombing mission. He always talked to me, and I could hear what he might say now. He never left me alone for too long. _{You will always be above the crowd, even more so with these new little wings of yours,}_ he had cooed, tracing where my wings spawned on my back and his breath getting far too close to the nape of my neck. He had ruffled my feathers and slipped his hand into places that were no longer mine. I shuddered at the memory, and distracted myself with creating a list of things to buy.


	5. Markets Are Not Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping is not easy, and Hydra is very intrigued in getting you back.

I’d calmed down, collected myself and allowed Natasha to lead me to a ‘cover car’, a generic (see: ugly) sedan that wouldn’t attract attention. And jeez, the thing did not look like it belonged to a top secret supernatural-international protection agency. It’s lack of blooming personality was astounding in it’s overwhelming aura of bland. The trash looked like a pothead’s car, (‘Expertly placed’ by her, Clint, and Steve last time they went out drinking. There was a concerningly large collection of empty bags of Cool Ranch Doritos in the back.) and really I was just astounded at the amount of normal it held within it’s mild walls. I sat passenger as she drove quietly, no radio, and felt a surreal air come over the silence as I realized that I was so, so free- Tears pricked at my eyes, and even though I knew it was silly, I enjoyed the fact that we traveled so calmly to the store, such a blatantly normal act that held so much meaning of free. I laughed it off inside and just stared in awe out the window. Such wide expanses seemed far more massive after years underground. I was glad I didn’t feel so glazed over after what had happened.

_ - A camera zoomed in, sequential pictures taken through a longshot lens as the target disappeared into the mall. Ground units were dispatched with warning that the Black Widow accompanied the target, and that the area was coated in civilians holding recording equipment. Units began moving in. - _

“So,” Nat chimed, “What do you want to buy first? Clothes, tech,” she smirked, “more food?” 

“A map is a good place to start.”

“Good with me,” she deferred, and we set on our way.

We started with clothes. She helped me choose a range of things, from flashy and glamorous, to comfy and lazy, to the best of blending in. It was hard to not care about the money, having been a college student, but Natasha kept reminding me that I’d lost all of my things and it wasn’t any money at all to Tony. I begrudgingly pushed away the guilt and continued shopping. 

It took maybe 2 hours, but I finally got everything you needed. Even with such a long time away from normal life, I was careful with the money and ended up with fewer clothes than Natasha suggested I have. I got my hair cut from shaggy-waistline to mid-back, and dyed the normal chestnut brown with undertones of red. I was looking for a music player at the Apple store when a familiar smell forced itself to my attention like a knife into my brain. Fear tore through my veins and I froze in place.

“Natasha,” I whimpered, barely audible. “They’re here. They found me.” She popped her neck and faked checking her phone. 

“Sooo,” she drawled in a valley girl accent, “Dad wants us back soon. You know how he gets when his baby girls are gone too long,” she led me out quickly, curling her arm around mine and nearly skipping out of the store, our unlinked arms loaded with bags. Men in dark uniforms followed us soon.

We didn’t get out quickly. It was as though they always knew where I was, turning at every double-back the two of us made with at most a half-minute delay. I was near hyperventilating when we finally speed-walked out into the parking lot, shoved the bags in the backseat, and sped off, Hydra close in pursuit. Careening down the highway, the offensive cars barraged our car with bullets from the passenger side.  Natasha sideswiped the attacking car into another Hydra van, and before the attackers could damage the ride enough for it to stop, SHIELD sky reinforcements had taken out the drivers. Natasha drove maniacally fast down the highway, her destination unknown.

“N-Nat, I’m hit,” I projected over the roar of the tires kissing the highway, my words having to be forced out from gritted teeth. I had hunched away from the bullet-spray, only to have been shot straight through the shoulder, directly next to my collarbone.

“Stay calm until we get back to base, keep pressure on the wound through cloth and do what you can to keep your pulse down. I can’t help much right now,” Natasha instructed, and I was glad she kept her attention on the ridiculously speeding car. I strained and stretched my reach into the back-seat, chose the least expensive shirt I could find through the haze of pain and contortion, and pressed it into the exit wound on my shoulder, face twisting into a silent scream. The wound itself felt like someone had funneled alcohol into it, and I couldn’t help but strangle out sounds as I pressed into the wound. Tears slid down my face but I weren’t sobbing.  _It’s only the physical response to the pain_ , I lied to myself,  _Hydra can’t touch me. They can’t touch me._

_ {:Gunfire. Blood. Rivers, lakes of blood, all because of me. It was another bio-bombing with me as the weapon. Screams brushed at my ears, their full terrifying force cut short with the blood rushing through my head. Bullets lodged in my hulking muscles and matted fur, but their sting too was muted with the utter rage that led me to be dropped in this town in the first place. The bio-bombings were all my fault.:} _

I remembered the other day, when food, energy, had healed me nearly completely. I focused all of my concentration on the wound, and imagined all of the blood vessels that had been torn through reforming and clotting over. Lifting the shirt-towel, I found the wound to have covered in spidery red filaments. I huffed in amusement at my success, but when I tried to wipe the blood away, it kept coming. I searched again in my mind, and felt the bone was nicked and the marrow was exposed and bleeding. I gritted my teeth and tried the process again, scabbing the blood over thickly.

It worked, but at a cost. A rush of tiredness washed over me, and I could barely keep your eyes open.

“Nat,” I called out, my senses so dull I could barely hear my own voice, “I… I healed it a bit, I’m not bleeding anymore,” a yawn forced itself into my sentence, “I gotta sleep though.” And before she could protest, I was gone.

I woke again in the medical bay, a cast immobilizing my shoulder and neck, and heavy swaths of cotton fabric soaked in antimicrobial seeping into my wound. The smell of rich food sat nearby but I couldn’t turn my head enough to see it. Dr. Davidson entered soon enough and used a remote to angle my bed up into a seated position.

“We were surprised when we saw you,” she began, “People don’t lose that much blood and stay awake very often. Or alive, for that matter.”

“But I- fell asleep. Didn’t stay awake,” I replied jaggedly, mouth feeling as full of cotton as my wound. I recognized the opiate sensation from breaking my arm at 13, and getting my wisdom teeth pulled at 16.  _How delightful_ , I thought, grimacing at the feeling. 

“The amount of blood you lost, coupled with the nerve and bone trauma should have knocked you out in twenty seconds or less,” she corrected. “According to Agent Romanov, you were awake for over two minutes after the shooting. I’m impressed.”

“I’m used to pain, but bullets, not so much,” I informed. 

_ {You wanna eat lead, bitch? Or do you wanna be quiet and suck my dick already? You slut. :He slurred the ’sl’ of slut as he pointed a gun square in my face, brushing it against my top lip and nudging it under my nose.: You better fucking like it too! And if you bite my cock I’ll fill your brain with enough metal to- there you, go, it’s a lot ea- ungh! :He groaned, bucking his hips into my mouth and gagging me.: -easier to just go along with it, ain’t it? :It was the only time I'd had a gun pointed at me outside of the bio-bombings. It was one of the worst times I'd had in Hydra’s grasp.:}  _

I gasped and jerked my head away from the memory, trying to tuck it into my uninjured shoulder. My shuddering breath reminded me of the hole in my physique, and I instinctively raised my opposing hand to cradle it.

“Obviously your body is processing the painkillers quicker than intended. Here’s the control dial, don’t turn it too fast. I’ll come check on you in an hour unless there’s a disturbance on the machines,” Davidson instructed, handing me the drug remote. I turned it up two notches and dreamt a warped dream. 

_ Guns fired needles into the car, hitting me in the shoulder again, and the fuzzy feeling of opiates bloomed outward from the needle-shot. Steve was beckoning to me in my cell again, and Natasha gave him a needle-gun. Why would Natasha have a bad thing so available to her? Untrustworthy, the doctor seethed in my ear as I hung in a black nothing, and I redirected that untrustworthiness at him, because he deserved it. Natasha and Steve deserved trust. Dim spheres of colors surrounded me and I marveled at them, trying to touch them. I passed my hand through an indigo one, thought of a name- ILLEYA STATON- and went from floating to being filled with lead in my hospital bed again. _

I opened my eyes and was back in the concious world. 

Steve was there, reading a book with a three-inch spine that sat heavily on his lap and his mind. I felt the remote in my hand, and glanced down to see where the incline button was. I pressed the button with my weighted thumb and the bed sat me up. I was pretty sure I couldn’t move much from the drugs in my system, but I managed to turn down the painkillers enough to keep from overdosing. By this point Steve had looked up from his book (which I could now see was a history of WWII) and came to sit closer to me.

“Hey, how you doing?” he asked in a strange tone that tread far lighter on the topic than necessary.

“I’m not terminal, Steve, you don’t have to have feather feet,” I slurred, hoping my point got across. “I thought of a name, tell your director man that I’m gonna be Illeya Staton now. Is the doctor here? How’s my shoulder?”

“Your bone’s already healed and the healing process is quick like before. I’ll tell the director later, just get some rest,” he comforted.

“Uh-uh,” I declined, shaking my head slowly because any faster and I was on an amusement park ride, “I feel like I’ve slept for ages. Got food?” 

He smiled with a yes, and at that, I knew I was going to be okay. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This should follow the same storyline as the other work of the same name, but may have more embellishing due to the ease of writing in first person. I'm sorry if the storylines don't match up absolutely perfectly, but I'll be trying to convey the same images and messages between them.


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